Twitter tips to take Tweets to the next level – Austin American
August 1, 2011 by admin
Filed under Choosing Lingerie
By Omar Gallaga
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Back in early 2007, when Twitter began to take off, Austin’s adopters fumbled and toyed with the online messaging service. In those early days, there were only a few dozen of us in town. We made up the rules as we went along, tweet by tweet. Like a developing new language, the norms and etiquette of Twitter grew organically.
Then Twitter got mainstream. It now has more than 200 million users, and it’s common to see references to it on TV (HBO shows have their own Twitter hashtags, displayed when the shows are broadcast), in the news (CNN and other outlets, the American-Statesman included, regularly use Twitter content) and, of course, in the hands of your fellow citizens, who are furiously tapping at their touchscreen phones whenever something of any significance at all happens to them.
But I’m going to be honest, and I mean this with no disrespect: A lot of y’all are just doing it wrong.
Maybe you figured out how to post a picture on Twitter. Perhaps you’ve mastered how to direct message instead of posting a private thought to someone as a public @reply. Congratulations! You’ve mastered the basics. But now it’s time to take your Twitter game to the next level.
There’s a lot of etiquette to learn and things you can do to avoid annoying your Twitter followers. Here are a few things I’ve learned over the years and a few additional tips I put together with help from friends and followers. A lot of these ideas also apply to other social networks like Facebook and Google+.
In general
This isn’t texting. Spell it right.You might think there’s no room to form complete thoughts or spell words out, but a lot of us manage just fine without resorting to “b” for “be” or “2nite” for “tonight.” Abbreviate when it’s absolutely necessary, but don’t make it your default style.
Pace yourself.If something major is happening — say, you just witnessed a crime — tweet away. But for normal days, spread your tweets a little instead of machine-gunning all your thoughts at once. Tools like Tweetdeck even let you schedule a tweet to post at a future time.
Leave Gandhi alone. A pet peeve of mine is people who constantly tweet inspirational quotes with absolutely no context (other than trying to sound like they’re living a Dalai Lama-approved life). Leave the quote collecting to Bartlett.
Turn off those automatic Gowalla and Foursquare updates. Don’t allow services or apps to automatically post every bit of activity to your Twitter account. You can post manually when you want the world to know you’re the Mayor of Chuck E. Cheese’s.
No tweeting from the toilet. Never. No. Don’t do it. And if you do it anyway, please don’t tweet about it.
Replies and retweets
Respond to @replies. If someone responds to your tweets, take the time to reply, even if it’s just to thank or acknowledge the person. Exceptions: Don’t reply to spam messages or feel you need to engage someone who’s trying to bait you into a Twitter feud.
Attribution is your friend. Retweeting a link, kitty photo or breaking news? Credit the person who alerted you to it and, whenever possible, the person who originated the info. Saying “via” “h/t” (for “hat tip”) or “RT @person” doesn’t take up much room. Don’t pass off retweeted jokes or links as your own.
Don’t retweet celebrities. In general, don’t retweet anyone who has more than a million followers. Chances are anyone who’s interested in the celebrity’s tweets already follows her.
Use “.@” sparingly. By default, @replying someone only displays the tweet to you, the person you’re replying to and anyone who follows you both. Adding a period before the @ tweets it to everyone. Only do that when your reply is something you feel everyone should see (for instance, if you find yourself answering the same question over and over).
Don’t beg for retweets. Tweeting “Please retweet!” or direct messaging someone asking them to tweet information on your behalf seems desperate, especially when directed at a celebrity. People will retweet good content when they see it. Make sure you post things worth passing on and it’ll happen naturally.
Don’t retweet compliments. Retweeting every compliment or positive thing someone tweets to you makes you look both smug and insecure. Call it a “Humblebrag” or (as Matt Graves, who works in Twitter’s San Francisco communications office, refers to it) a “Metabrag.” Either way, it’s annoying. Once in a while is OK. Do it constantly and it’ll backfire.
